A/N: Hi. I'm back. At least for a while.

I know, I know. I know I should have left this paradise if I wanted to move on to bigger and better paradises while I had the chance but strangely - after reading my betareader's (storyteller1425) stories - I had the sudden urge to write again. Also, I needed a catharsis for my extreme sadness here in college (man, has it only been three weeks?).

This is a more down-to-earth fic portrayal of Percy and Annabeth's future together, or at least I hope so. I think it's a good reflection of what I imagine will actually transpire for them in a few years if only Uncle Rick isn't concerned about polluting the mind of the youth, and since I'm not as concerned as he is, I thought I might give this a shot.


Title: A Table For Two

Summary: Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase can't always be teenagers forever. A story chronicling their (mis)adventures as they try to figure out their place in the world where Olympus and gods and monsters stay in the shelves. A future fic.


Chapter 1: Step 1: College

Perseus "Percy" Jackson is not the brightest crayon inside the box, but who does care? He doesn't; the R&D team of Crayola and Lil' Hands sure don't.

And coloring pencils are sure more elaborate in this era, he once thought to himself.

Whether cerulean, yellow, or magenta, Percy was half-convinced that he does not need a diploma, he will not need a diploma, and – strictly speaking – cannot get a diploma.

But here he is, carrying five overdue books to the library, with Byzantium: The Early Centuries hanging precariously at the nook of his arm. He curses at the sublime bureaucracy implemented in the hallways of Queens. It seems to him like a path towards the blackhole where no essence of happiness can ever escape, with the library as its focal.

He has always hated the librarian. With the upturned nose and the ever-present frown taped on her mandible, the old woman has always exuded impatience and a no-nonsense aura that a boy with a single overdue book sticking over the line sets off her alarm in a completely unpleasant way. It doesn't help much either that she (ironically) yells constantly, one of the telling signs she doesn't – and will never – have any kids.

"Jackson!" the librarian foghorns on his ear. Percy pulls back the urge to fire one of his hardbound books onto her withering forehead as he smiles. "Your card's runnin' a little low on space! You only 'ave two a chance left and you'll be gettin' the boot!"

Time to switch on the good ol' Jackson charm. "See, this is why there's been a lot of 'additional ten slots on the Borrower's Overdue Card' on the slips of paper in the suggestion box."

She snorts. It never works. "Always in a hurry! Always forgettin' stuff! Couldn't even paste in mind one goddam' date. There must be somethin' wrong with what y'all generation's been eatin' or y'all wouldn't be gettin' amnesia all of a sudden!"

"I mean, doesn't it totally defeat the purpose of having a suggestion box if the suggestions don't even get considered – or even read – by the higher ups?"

"Enough stallin'!" the old woman shouts, her neatly cropped snow-white hair practically rising with static. Percy dryly images a Medusa and Thalia hybrid. With white hair and false teeth.

She forcefully takes the books from his arm, and scans the product ID from each book and Percy's library card. Percy's unsmiling face appears, with a $45 notice below. He cringes; there goes his dinner money for his only Wednesday splurge night at Chili's.

The elder notices this and smiles what should have been a sweet smile. "A lesson for y'all to learn today! Go get your memory fixed, Sonny! And your pants, while you're at it! Oh goodness, kids these days! Always irresponsible! Always –"

Percy shuts himself out from what seemed to be a profanity of always-es, taking out his wallet and placing five tens on the counter. He refuses to sigh the heaviest of sighs, not wanting the hag on his front making an eight-sentenced statement on it either.

This college thing is time-wasting, arduous, and costly. Very costly. He can't remember the last time he heard his spine and scapula not protesting on the constant pressure he gets placed on for his four part-time jobs and the senior counseling back at Camp Half-Blood. Although it partly mattered that his mother and stepfather are (as they have said) proud of him and that Chiron gave him an encouraging nod and a pat at the back, if it weren't for the danger that he would never survive for another ten years without something of a semblance of an education and/or a job, he would be flipping Queens College's chancellor the finger.

Not to mention the gray-eyed blonde who he swears has surveillance on him every single minute, and who would mercilessly gut him like a salmon if he ever quits on his third year.

He blames Annabeth Chase for everything that transpired in the last three years and, consequently, if he is being honest to himself, owes her everything. Not even her mom raised the platform for his taking Ancient and Modern Greek Studies, no. She is him in almost every way. But Annabeth did. Oh, that scary, overcritical lady drilled him for SATs, essays, and campus hunting. As much as getting into MIT proved to be incredible, getting Percy Jackson to admit – and to pass – for CUNY Queens is no small feat either. Gods only know how much studying, arguing, bribing (and kissing) the couple had to go through to be where they are now.

He misses her. That he can be honest to the gods about.

University students are animals, predators. The teachers and the staff too. Basilisks and chimeras, every single one of them. Even with the dyslexia and ADD aside, it is hard to catch up. He can feel all those arithmetic, logarithmic, and analytic skills he had missed and ignored in his primary and secondary years coming back to bite him in the ass, and gods it hurt. He feels like a bubblehead amidst the crowd, except the place where a brain should be has been replaced with nothing but helium, and the fact that he's taking a course where he should be considerably knowledgeable about but, apparently, still lags on is a big statement on its own.

She tries calling him back, really. Sometimes it will take a few days for them to properly talk. Other times, weeks. He understands fully. MIT is known for pushing their students to the brink of insanity, with momentary sneak peeks to Hades' vast realm during the Novembers and the Marchs. He teases her about these lapses, mostly because he likes getting a rise out from her, and partly because he likes the cute red-faced daughter of Athena when she's embarrassed about to her "ineptitude". What he doesn't mention is how worried he is.

Yes, he's absolutely worried.

About college. About jobs. About the fucking future. Some sanctuary for the savior of the earth and western civilization should be in order, but no. Not really, no. Reality tsks and tsks in its spare time, and it guarantees no exceptions. He worries about chasing the A in Social Sciences II everyone covets. He worries about Danny in isle six back at Walter's, about whether he will be back from his leave or will he have to cover for him again for five hours doing menial stuff like scanning product bars from groceries. He worries about his mother, about Paul. He worries if there ever would be another whole-scale invasion in Olympus that he has to watch out, prepare and die for. He worries whether Annabeth's doing all right on her own.

It's hilarious, his worrying. He knows it, but somehow he can't refrain himself from refusing the recliner. She's a big girl, and if anything, they both know he should be more worried about his own welfare. However, their trip to the infamous Tartarus did have its long-lasting effects; his eyes would constantly dart from side to side whenever the AVR rooms went dark, and he instinctively searches for a pair of hands that he frustratingly knows won't be there.

A cherry on top: he feels impossibly stupid. Not just dumb. Not just as a seaweed-brained idiot. He feels very, very stupid. i.e.: the forest grump and Megan Fox. It must be from the dry, academic air he still hasn't gotten used to in his three years stay, but one has to think otherwise. And he wonders whether Annabeth will ever get to the part where she breaks up with him because he has proven he can never achieve something that involves walking down the aisle, wearing a flowing toga and diploma within arm's reach. Or when will she get to the part.

He doesn't say anything about his qualms, though. He's the Hero of Olympus.

~0~

When Percy does get the answers to the questions that kept nagging in his head for years, he's not sure if he should be happy or not.

One day, Annabeth jumps from her seat and on him, knocking the wind out from his chest. This momentary un-Annabeth behavior evaporates as fast as it came, and the look she gives him did not slip a proof that she enveloped him in a hug a second earlier. "You said you'd be here by 8."

At this, Percy almost laughs. "A co-worker's still not back from Norway. I had to cover for his Norwegian ass."

"Who's covering for your ass when I'll shove a stick inside it?" she takes the box of brownies from Percy and settles it on the table top. "The pasta I ordered is already cold."

"You ordered pasta? Since when did you ever accept ordering pasta as a norm?" Percy eyes her, his eyebrows rising.

"I have had a craving for Italian. Don't spoil it."

Annabeth's apartment is sleek, neat, and cool as always. Percy inspects the kitchen. Everything is in exact order except for the unopened cans of soup that loiter near the sink. The frying pans are hung on a wooden pole Percy once made for her during a monster-infested trip to the Bahamas (he's still unsure of why she keeps it when she has always declared the thing as an "abomination of wood stands"). The refrigerator is as tall as he, and it takes up more than half of the space it needs to be. The tiled floor gives somewhat of an effervescence that lightens up the room, and he supposes it's not only because he finally sees her for about four months of absolute Chase deprivation.

"How's Archi?" he starts.

Annabeth groans without trepidation, and she gingerly opens the lid from the box of carbonara and garlic bread. "They're horrible; ask me to whiplash a Titan instead and I'd take it any day. They are so uptight, and I can't believe they thought of my pillar designs as unorthodox." She scoffs the last word as if it is some kind of mental illness. "They're damn conservatives – that's what they are. And I'll fucking prove to them that that kind of attitude begets untrimmed buildings and world hunger. I mean, what the hell do they think the beams on the trenches were for? Stripper haven?"

They've been together for so long Percy practically blocks everything that sounded inconsequential to him besides the curses, and for that he replies a straight "You tell 'em!".

Annabeth rambles on, knowing that her significant other will let all rants flow from one ear to another but finds herself not caring. She can't complain on campus about anything whether she likes it or not, and it's nice to have someone who may or may not be listening to tell everything she has gotten dammed in her chest. "And d'you remember that pock-marked guy with the unkempt goatee? The one who got you kicked out from the dormitory on the first weeks? Yeah, yeah. Him. I ran onto him the other day and you know what? He getsme. He fucking gets me. But they said he was 'completely mental' to accept my proposal. Why ask me to architect the mural if they're not going to let me take care of my own project in the first place?

"Percy, your sauce. It's dripping on your pants."

Percy looks up from his reverie and stares at her numbly. "Huh? What?"

She rolls her eyes and pointedly looks at the white substance accumulating on his crotch. Yes, they really have been together for so long, however it may take twice or thrice as long for Annabeth to get used to his not listening to her when they're talking about school or architecture.

Annabeth hands him a paper towel right across the table, and he smothers his clothed ego with it. Good thing the sauce isn't as hot as it should have been.

She decides to ignore the blunder and asks: "And how about you, Oh Great Perseus Jackson? What have you been up to for the last couple of weeks? Gotten any sleep?"

It is unfortunate for him to say that he hasn't. Constantly plagued with reoccurring nightmares and lengthy lectures to remember, Percy hadn't gotten a wink of sleep for three days. The week before that, he only slept for a maximum of four, and another six. And the worst part was:

"I think I might have to drop Greek Archeology, Annabeth. I'm seriously getting nowhere with it, and the prof's a serious rash – you know where I'm coming from right?"

That got the reaction he was expecting. They stare down at each other for a few seconds until Annabeth breaks the silence, eyeing him skeptically. "I don't know, Seaweed Brain. It's a total of five units right? If you drop it in the middle of the semester, you might be held back a year, and that's me being quite optimistic – "

"It's just a year," he soothes. "I can totally catch up."

What he doesn't say is that he's planning on dropping all of his subjects before the deadline of dropping at the registrar comes.

He remembers seeing the grading sheet, with all the numbers that would certainly make Athena faint. And her daughter would definitely faint too, if she saw it. He questions whether it matters if he got to finish college alongside Annabeth. He has the whole Greek world falling apart in his tow; he's busy enough putting out the fires. Does he have to suffer too in the mortal world?

"But Percy – "

"What's the point of all this, anyway?" Percy claims, repeating the question inside his head. "I mean, it's not like this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I don't even get why Machiavelli gives a crap about Plato – who the hell does? That's just fucking obscure. And this is about me getting a shitty job?"

"You're totally missing the point," Annabeth counters.

He snorts without thinking, and he regrets it instantly as he sees Annabeth dropping her fork and giving him a full-on glare. He can feel the arrows waiting to penetrate the target he just painted on his forehead.

"I thought we've talked about this," she says, her voice rising. "We go to college, get degrees, get jobs, and take on whatever course nature – or the gods – wants us to take."

That is so unfair! the child in Percy shouts at the top of his imaginary miniature lungs, and he agrees as he is swept by the moment. This kind of life isn't for him, isn't for them. They are son and daughter of the immortal gods – the great Greek gods of Olympus. They are anything but ordinary, and trying to be what they aren't is totally against what "course nature wants us to take" Annabeth has been preaching about. "But haven't you noticed that it's not working out for me? For any of us? Come on, Annabeth. This is something we can't fit in into. We're lucky we even got this old, and look at the multiple scars?"

Her lips are set in a grim line. "This isn't about fitting in. We are trying to live with what we have. With what we're off – "

"There. You're totally ignoring me –

"And you were not, just ten minutes ago?"

"Double backslash there, Annabeth. Look at it from my perspective. The New Rome – "

"We are not Romans, Percy!" she yells, her eyes a gray blaze of rage. "It's a sanatorium for Roman demigods who can't take a beating in the real world! And even if there's a Greek equivalent of that shiny 'Utopia' or whatever the fuck whoever conjured that idea called it, I'm telling you there is no way we can ever get to be happy and contented there! You want to die young? You want to go die doing nothing except live in this fantasy world where we get to fight monsters all the time? Oh wait, don't tell me. You want to slap high-fives with Dionysus over a cup of stale beer in your everlasting land of peace and hangovers." A rolling thunder follows the lightning strike that comes and Annabeth ignores this. "This is nothing about living up to your glorious legacy! We're not kids anymore, don't you get it? We can't always have ballpoint pens turning into swords and hacking monsters into ashes! We're not kids, and we can't be.

"Tell me." Annabeth's eyes are swimming with unshed tears; a testament of how frustrated she is is that she doesn't turn around to wipe them away. "Why is it that you always make these things personal?"

Percy's mouth drops down, shocked. "What?"

"Why is it, at the end of the day, everything is all about you? Why is that?" She turns away, hurriedly locking the door of her room with more force than deemed necessary.

What? What?

The war in Percy Jackson's head does not abate a little, nor does the pudgy general of arms order his men to put down their weapons.

Why is it, at the end of the day, everything is all about you?

He's an idiot, but not in this terms. He decides to clean up the dishes as smoothly as he can, puts the leftovers inside the fridge and crash at the couch after turning off the lights, waiting for Annabeth's better day.

~0~

"Hey. Could you please move your head? Just a little? There, thanks."

Percy can recognize this voice anywhere, especially in the dark. He helps himself sit up from the couch, rubbing his sore eyelids. "Uhh. Annabeth? Are you alright?"

"Couldn't sleep," she answers simply.

"Okay."

They sit together for the next thirty minutes leaning onto each other on the couch, not saying a word, clothed by the darkest of darkness. Even in one o' clock in the morning, Middlesex County still buzzes with life – a feat that can never rival the Big Apple nor the holy land of Hollywood, but still a worthy competitor. Although San Francisco and Massachusetts differ in a gamut of aspects, the buildings, the street people, the constant round-and-about supply of tourists make Annabeth feel less homesick.

"Are you leaving me?"

The way Percy breaks the silence makes Annabeth's head do a painful one-eighty degree turn on him in all of her surprise. It doesn't help much that she heard the quiver in his voice when he queried.

"What? Why?" Annabeth sits erect, turns up the lamp on the nightstand next to the couch. Percy's face is strong, immovable, removed. The only giveaways to his supposed calm are his pallid cheeks and anxious eyes. Anxious sea green eyes that are searching for answers in her own. "Why are you asking me that?" she repeats.

He gives him a shrug that she thinks is supposed to be a nonchalant one. "I'm just curious. Are you tired of me? Because I can go away for a while, you know. Groveling, granted, because I'll still always come back for you but – "

She cuts him off by putting three fingers on top of his lips, arching an eyebrow. Annabeth doesn't know whether it is best to laugh or to get mad at him. "Perseus Jackson, are you actually being serious?"

"Yes."

She sighs. "No. I'm not."

"But you sighed."

"What about it?"

"It was a sad sigh."

"I can't believe you have the audacity to go technical on me."

"I'm just saying – "

"No." She takes his hand and squeezes it firmly, along with a promise. "No, I'm not."

It takes a minute before Percy responds with a sigh and a silent squeeze of his own. "Well, that's a relief."

"But why ask me this?" She looks up at him.

Again, he shrugs. "I just thought that, you know, maybe if I fail – I'm not saying that I am, but I will, I mean – come on, Annabeth. It's practically inevitable. But if I do… I'm just weighing the chances whether you'd want some hoodlum like me within ten inches near you." Not to mention that every single day the I AM STUPID neon sign is almost palpable on his head.

"Are you saying that you thought I'll break up with you if you never got around finishing college or got a job at Goldman Sachs for that matter?" There is a hysterical note in her voice that, somehow, she only reserves for him.

"That is a very nice – if not excessive – way of putting it."

She grins, then lets out a chortle. And she laughs, the tears she managed to clock back from her eyes run in streams with good excuse. The gush of air is almost painful though she welcomes it freely. Percy doesn't interject even if it's at his expense; he likes hearing her laugh. Now, more than ever.

"What gave you that idea?" she snickers.

"I just thought that you don't want to be with a guy who can't get an education. A stupid guy."

"And?"

"Oh, come on, smarty pants. Don't patronize me."

"I'm not, I'm not. And I think you never got the memo: it'd take a thousand Jacksons to even tick me off from the wire, and no, maybe not even then."

"That sounded horribly sexy."

"You are such a man."

His laugh is cut short with a whooping cough, and he sighs again, feeling one-sixth of the worry weight being lifted from his shoulders. Percy absentmindedly twirls a lock of Annabeth's hair in rapid succession. It tickles her a little, but she doesn't mention it.

"I'm sorry for calling you selfish." She thinks it is her time to start now.

He throws her a very lopsided grin. "No, it's okay. You were right. I was being mean and selfish. Though you do have to give me some credit here. I'm not technically invulnerable from making bad choices, and I'm afraid that if I do get to that station, it's not only me who's getting run over."

"Oh."

They fall silent again.

"We're going to be okay, right?" he asks her, a little hesitant.

"Yes, Percy. We are."

Percy looks at her inquiringly. "You sound awfully sure."

She tilts her head to meet his eyes, and the other five sixth of the heaviness disappears. Annabeth smiles softly. "I am."

At that, he knows. This isn't personal.

He finally leans on his metaphysical recliner, taking Annabeth's hand in his.

Because he believes her, believes in her, in him, and in them. Because for once, this isn't really about him. This is about her. About them. There can only be one rockstar in a relationship, and definitely only one who wears the pants. If Annabeth's holding the lamp and leading the way, then what is there for him to be afraid of?

This is about them. And they're going to be just fine.

"If you still haven't changed your mind, I heard from Jason that New Rome has room for two more bed spacers. Want to give him a ring?"

"You're an idiot."

The rumble of heavy laughter coming from his chest vibrates on Annabeth's tender head, and for a moment, with his arm unconsciously draped protectively around her waist, it is the most comforting feeling in the world.

~0~

Next Chapter: Step 2: Dates


A/N: It may take long for me to update, but you know what they say: I'll try. Thank you for reading. Please read and review!